Maree Coote is a Melbourne writer and designer, photographer and illustrator who has long held a passion for her home city, and who has been photographing the city and writing on Melbourne's history for over 10 years. Her recent creative exploits include a series of over 50 artworks reinventing Australia's sexiest bushranger Ned Kelly, and a book of the collection called 50 Neds: Ned Kelly, Icon of Australian Art.

It was during the two and a half year research phase of her first book (The Melbourne Book - A History of Now) that Coote was bitten forever with the Kelly bug and driven to create the 50 Neds series of artworks. This series is still being developed and extended, with large canvasses now on exhibit in the melbournestyle gallery in Clarendon Street South Melboune.

Her first book, The Melbourne Book - A History of Now - is a modern chronicle of a unique city. Visual, passionate and informative, it tells the history of a city and its style, its people and its vivid past. Crammed with anecdotes and detail and with over 700 photographs, The Melbourne Book explores the city with an eye for the ordinary and the extraordinary. First published in 2003, it is still going strong, The Melbourne Book won Commendation - Best Print - 2004 Victorian State Government History Awards.

Coote has also illustrated and written 3 children's picture books, all with Australian themes and a celebration of local icons and natural attributes. These include The Black Pot Belly - a charming and witty piece of nonsense about a magical pot belly stove whose antics illuminate the charm of low-tech living, and whose dreams include joining the Kelly Gang... Unusual and fresh, this very different tale is a delight. Artwork from Coote's children's books is now part of the permanent collection of the Dromkeen Children's Literature Collection.